Printing apparatus



Dec. 14, 1965 -r e. MAKOWSKI ETAL 3,223,031

PRINTING APPARATUS 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Dec. 17, 1962 INVENTORS THOMAS G. MAKO WSKI MARCEL E. VERDOOT ERNEST M.HUNTLEY 1965 'r. G. MAKOWSKI ETAL 3,223,031

PRINTING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 17, 1962 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Fig.4:

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INVENTOR5 THOMAS G. MAKOWSKI MARCEL E. VERDOOT ERNEST M. HUNTLEY HTTOFNEY United States Patent 3,223,031 PRINTING APPARATUS Thomas G. Makowski, Inkster, Marcel E. Verdoodt, Warren, and Ernest M. Huntley, Garden City, Mich., assignors to Burroughs Corporation, Detroit, Mich, a corporation of Michigan Filed Dec. 17, 1962, Ser. No. 245,058 6 Claims. (Cl. 101-109) The present invention relates to printing apparatus, and particularly to the type of printing apparatus which utilizes interposers.

The invention is particularly suitable for use with respect to the printing apparatus disclosed in Monticello et al. US. Patent No. 3,018,721, assigned to the same assignee as the present application. The invention is therefore herein described as embodied in that apparatus.

The printing apparatus disclosed in Patent No. 3,018,- 721 is capable of printing characters in accordance with very rigid specifications, and therefore is presently being used in a machine for printing magnetic ink characters on a check or other document. The printing mechanism includes a plurality of printing wheels disposed on one side of the check receiving the printing, and a plurality of interposers disposed on the opposite side of the check. In the machine described, there are 14 orders of printing elements, and therefore there are 14 printing wheels and 14 interposers, one for each printing wheel. An inked ribbon or carbon paper is interposed between the printing wheel and the check. A hammer is provided for each interposer, and strikes its respective interposer with a considerable impact force, in the order of 7585 pounds, to cause the printing wheels to print through the ribbon or carbon paper onto the check.

The interposers are made of metal to withstand this impact, but in the commercial form of the machine they include a plastic insert to soften somewhat the shock to the parts. However, it was found that the interposers are nevertheless subject to frequent breakage, and have to be replaced much more often than desirable. This involves a considerable expense since the interposers are costly to manufacture and relatively difiicult to replace.

An object of the present invention is to provide an improved printing apparatus utilizing interposers.

A further object of the invention is to provide an improvement to the interposers in this type of printing apparatus which extends the useful life of the interposers.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide an improvement to this type of printing apparatus which enables the use of less expensive interposers.

A still further object of the invention is to provide an interposer type of printing apparatus in which the operator can periodically replace the wearing interposer parts, and which therefore requires less frequent service calls because of interposer wear or breakage.

These and other objects, which will readily become apparent as the description proceeds, are attainable by the present invention which is herein described, for illustrative purposes only, as embodied in printing apparatus constructed in accordance with the disclosure in Monticello et al. Patent No. 3,018,721, this being a preferred embodiment of the invention.

Briefly, the invention provides a printing mechanism including a printing element disposed at one side of the record member to receive the print, an interposer assembly disposed on the opposite side of the record member, and a hammer adapted to strike the interposer to effect the printing, characterized in that the interposed assembly carries a quickly attachable and removable cap made of a relatively resilient material, this cap being carried on the record member side of the interposer. The

printing mechanism described is made up of a plurality of printing elements (actually 15 here, whereas 14 were illustrated in the patent), and a plurality of interposers and hammers, there being one interposer and hammer for each printing element. The caps for all the interposers are incorporated in a single unitary construtcion which is conveniently attachable and removable from all the interposers at one time.

The novel features of the invention are set forth in the appended claims, but the invention itself and its mode of operation will be best understood by the drawings illustrating a preferred embodiment thereof, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates the salient elements of the printing mechanism for one order of printing;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view, partly in section, of the interposer assembly with the replaceable cap carried by such assembly;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged view, partly in section, of the salient elements directly involved in printing one character; and

FIG. 4 is a plan view, looking from the bottom of the replaceable cap.

As mentioned earlier, the invention is herein described with respect to the printing apparatus disclosed in Patent No. 3,018,721. To simplify the present description, the drawings herein illustrate only those elements of that patent which are essential for a clear understanding of the present invention. Further details of the printing apparatus may be obtained by reading the patent. To facilitate an understanding of the present invention, those elements herein which are common to those in Patent 3,018,721 carry the same reference numerals.

Referring first to FIG. 1, the printing apparatus includes a plurality of printing wheels 24, there being 15 such wheels in the machine described. Printing wheels 24 are settable from toothed sectors 23 (FIG. 4) in accordance with the information desired to be printed. An interposer 33 is provided for each printing wheel and is adapted to be struck by a hammer 34 to effect the printing. Each interposer is formed with a flat face 33" confronting the check C and in alignment with its respective printing wheel 24. Check C is fed between the interposers 33 and their respective printing wheels 24, and an inked ribbon or carbon paper 32 is disposed between the check C and the assembly of printing wheels 24. The inked ribbon or carbon paper 32 carries a transfer coating, this coating in this case being a form of magnetic ink, which is transferred to the check when the hammers 34 strike their respecitve interposers 33.

The hammers 34 (there being 15, i.e., one for each interposer 33) are carried on arms 117 which are pivotably mounted on a shaft and normally limit against another shaft 116 in their normal positions of rest. Each of the hammer arms 117 is engageable with a hammer shoe 118 having a serrated cam segment 119 engageable with a hammer drive roll 35 which is continuously rotated by drive shaft 58. The cam segment 119 is normally spaced from drive roll 35, but when printing is to be effected, this cam segment is moved to engage the drive roll, which causes its respective hammer to be driven upwardly to strike the lower surface of its respective interposer 33.

Before the hammers are fired, interposers 33 are moved upwardly into relatively light engagement with the check C to press the check lightly (about 1 pound pressure) between the interposer and its printing wheel. Actually, this occurs only with respect to those orders in which printing is to be effected. In those orders in which printing is blocked, the interposers do not press the check C against their respective printing wheels. The purpose for causing the interposers to move upwardly before their hammers are fired and to press the check against their respective printing wheels is to assure positively that those areas of the check to receive printing will be immobile at the time the printing is actually effected, and also to assure that those areas will be flattened at the time printing is effected.

The mechanism for raising the interposers before their hammers are fired is also shown in FIG. 1. Briefly, it comprises a square shaft 101 extending through slots 100 formed in the interposers 33. Shaft 101 is carried between a pair of bellcranks fixed at opposite ends of a rock shaft 107. Only one of the bellcranks is seen in FIG. 1, this being identified by the reference numeral 105, and its arm carrying square shaft 101 is identified by the reference numeral 103. A second arm 108 of hellcrank 105 is coupled to a link 109, this link being in turn coupled to mechanism which moves it rearwardly of the machine (rightwardly, as viewed in FIG. 1) to pivot the bellcrank 105 and its arm 103, and thereby to raise square shaft 101 at the proper time in the machine cycle. This will tend to cause all the interposers 33 to rise into contact with the check C. However, means are provided for blocking those interposers in which no printing is to occur. This means includes a slide plate 200, one for each interposer, formed with a nose or catch 202 normally seated in a recess 203 formed on each interposer 3 3.

Normally, each slide plate 200 is moved (leftwardly in FIG. 1) so that catch 202 clears recess 203, this movement occurring before the point in the machine cycle when square shaft 101 is lifted. The interposer is thus permitted to rise the normal amount to press the check C between the printing wheel 24 and its respective interposer 33. However, in those orders where printing is not to be effected, slide plate 200 is not permitted to move, and therefore catch 202 will limit against the bottom surface of recess 203, and will thereby limit the movement of its respective interposer so that the check is not pressed between the printing wheel 24 and the interposer 33 in that order of printing. In those orders, the raising of shaft 101 will compress a spring 102 disposed in slot 100 of the interposers.

When hammers 34 are fired later in the cycle to effect the printing, only the hammers of those orders in which printing is to be effected are actually fired. Those hame mers in which printing is not to be effected are blocked. The mechanism for accomplishing the foregoing is not involved in the operation of the present invention, and therefore is not illustrated herein.

Because of the considerable striking force each hammer 34 engages its respective interposer 33, this being in the order of 75-85, pounds as mentioned earlier, the commercial form of the machine utilizes a plastic insert molded on the impact face of each interposer, in order to take up some of this shock. This entailed a considerable increase in the cost of manufacturing these interposers. ject to very frequent breakage and therefore had to be frequently replaced. Moreover, it was not a simple procedure to replace the broken interposers, this normally requiring the services of a skilled technician. All in all, the replacement of these interposers involved frequent service calls and a considerable expense.

The present invention provides an improvement in the printing mechanism described above, particularly the interposer assembly, and resides, broadly speaking, in the incorporation of a removable and replaceable cap member in the interposer assembly. The cap, generally designated 300 in the drawings, is in the form of an elongated, channel-like member including a fiat top 302 and a pair of depending side walls 304 which are adapted forquickly attachable and detachable engagement with the interposers 33. The side walls 304 are formed with inwardly extending projections or ribs 306, rounded at their bottom surfaces 306', and adapted to seat into Nevertheless, the interposers were still subnotches 33' of the interposers 33 when the cap is applied. The top face of cap 300 is formed with a plurality of transverse slits 307 dividing the top into a plurality of sections 308, there being one section for each of the interposers 33. In the illustrated embodiment, there are 15 interposers 33, and therefore there would be 15 sections 308. Each of the sections 308 conforms to the dimension of the flat impact face 33" of its respective interposer 33 and is seated on that face when the cap is applied. All of the sections 308 are thus similarly dimensioned, except that one end section (right end as seen in FIG. 2) is formed with a projection 310 to provide a convenient manipulatable extension for removing the cap from the interposer assembly.

The cap is easily snapped onto the interposers, because of its inherent resiliency, and is retanied in position by the seating of ribs 306 in the notches 33 of the interposers. The cap is also self-registering, or self-locating. For this purpose, one of the interposers 33 is not notched, and the corresponding cap section 308 has the internal ribs 306 interrupted, or cut out, from the section. The unnotched interposer, hereinafter called the registration interposer, is identified by the reference numeral 33a and its corresponding cap section, hereinafter called the registration section, is identified by the reference numeral 303a. FIG. 3 illustrates the registration section 308a as being the one exactly in the middle of the cap, that is, the one occupying the eighth position from either end. It will of course be appreciated that this position of registration section 308a, and correspondingly that of registration interposer 33a, may be other than the one illustrated.

The use of cap 300 does not affect the basic operation of the machine. That is, early in the machine cycle unblocked interposers 33 are still moved upwardly into engagement with the check C to press the check between the interposers and their respective printing wheels 24; whereas the blocked interposers have their movements limited (by catch 202 in recess 203) so that they do not press the check between the interposers and the printing wheels. This differential movement is very slight. In one machine, the unblocked interposers move 0.155 inch, and the blocked interposers are blocked just short of that position, this being permitted by the inherent resiliency of the cap.

To apply the cap 300, the operator need only snap it on to the interposer assembly, with ribs 306 seated in notches 33', and then slide it longitudinally on the interposer assembly until the unnotched registration interposer 33a seats in the cut-out of registration cap section 308a. To remove the cap, the operator need only push outwardly on projection 310 with a finger, and the cap will snap out of notches 33' of the interposer assembly.

This cap 300 can be manufactured very inexpensively, as by molding, using a material having high impact resistance, such as nylon or polyurethane. It therefore can be supplied with each new ribbon 32, so that the operator may replace it every time a new ribbon is inserted in the machine. A commercial ribbon presently used has a life in the order of 12,000-13,000 impressions, and it has been found that an interposer cap of the construction illustrated has a life in the order of 50,000 impressions. The life of the cap is, therefore, considerably more than necessary to be replaced with each new transfer ribbon 32.

The use of the novel cap in the assembly described has been found to lengthen to a remarkable extent the life of the interposers 33. Further, its use enables the interposers to be made wholly of metal and avoids the molded plastic insert of the earlier used ones. There interposers, even with the cap, can therefore be manufactured at a much lower cost than the previously used ones. Moreover, because of the ease of applying and removing the cap 300, the operator himself is thus able to replace periodically the wearing part of the interposer assembly. All these advantages in the improved printing assembly described enable a printing assembly to be provided which is less costly to manufacture, of longer life, and less costly to maintain and service, than the previous mechanisms.

While there has been illustrated and described one preferred embodiment of the invention, it will be appreciated that various features of the invention, singly or in combination, may have other applications and may be used in other embodiments, and it is therefore understood that the invention is to be restricted only as defined in the following claims:

We claim:

1. Printing apparatus for printing information on a record member, comprising: a plurality of printing elements settable to present a line of information to be printed on the record member, said settable printing elements being disposed to one side of said record member; a plurality of interposers disposed at the opposite side of said record member, each interposer having a fiat face confronting the record member and in alignment with one of said printing elements; a cap of resilient plastic material carried by said flat faces of said interposers, said cap being of a unitary construction and being formed with slits dividing same into a plurality of sections, one for each of said interposers; and means for impacting at least certain of said interposers for effecting a printing action from at least some of said printing elements onto said record member.

2. Printing apparatus for printing information on a record member, comprising: a plurality of printing elements settable to present a line of information to be printed on the record member, said settable printing elements being disposed to one side of said record member; an interposer assembly disposed at the opposite side of said record member; said interposer assembly including a plurality of interposers each having a flat face confronting the record member and in alignment with one of said printing elements, and a cap of resilient plastic material carried by said fiat faces of said interposers; said cap being in the form of an elongated, channel-like member including a fiat top and depending side walls; said cap being formed with slits dividing same into a plurality of sections, one for each of said interposers; and means for striking at least certain of said interposers for effecting a printing action from at least some of said printing elements onto said record member.

3. Printing apparatus as defined in claim 2, wherein the slits of the cap extend transversely across the top thereof and partly down the depending side walls.

4. Printing apparatus as defined in claim 2, wherein the interposers are formed with notches and the depending side walls of the cap are formed with projections adapted to seat in said notches.

5. Printing apparatus as defined in claim 4, wherein at least one interposer is unnotched and the side walls of the cap corresponding to the position of said unnotched interposer are not formed with said projections, whereby to provide a means for enabling said cap to be registered in proper position on said plurality of interposers.

6. Printing apparatus for printing information on a record member, comprising: a plurality of printing elements settable to present a line of information to be printed on the record member, said settable printing elements being disposed to one side of said record member; an interposer assembly including a plurality of interposers disposed at the opposite side of said record member and a cap of resilient plastic material snapped on and carried by said interposers; each interposer having a fiat face confronting the record member and in alignment with one of said printing elements; said cap being of a unitary construction in the form of an elongated, channel-like member including a fiat top and depending side walls; said cap being formed with a plurality of slits extending transversely across said top and partly down said side walls dividing the top into a plurality of sections, one for each of said interposers; said interposers being formed with notches on opposite sides thereof adjacent their flat faces; said depending side walls of said cap being formed with inwardly extending ribs seatable in said notches; a transfer sheet disposed between said printing elements and the record member; and a plurality of hammers, one for each interposer, adapted to strike their respective interposers during the machine cycle for effecting a printing action from said printing elements and transfer sheet onto said record member.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,750,004 3/1930 Hellesoe 101381 2,222,333 11/1940 Wenzel et al 101381 2,450,656 10/1948 Gowland 101103 2,887,043 5/1959 Terry 101407 X 2,940,389 6/1960 Devon 101-381 2,996,002 8/1961 Adler et al. 101-407 X 3,018,721 1/1962 Monticello et a1 l0l-93 OTHER REFERENCES IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol. 4, No. 12, May 1962, page 3.

WILLIAM B. PENN, Primary Examiner. 

1. PRINTING APPARATUS FOR PRINTING INFORMATION ON A RECORD MEMBER, COMPRISING: A PLURALITY OF PRINTING ELEMENTS SETTABLE TO PRESENT A LINE OF INFORMATION TO BE PRINTED ON THE RECORD MEMBER, SAID SETTABLE PRINTING ELEMENTS BEING DISPOSED TO ONE SIDE OF SAID RECORD MEMBER; A PLURALITY OF INTERPOSERS DISPOSED AT THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF SAID RECORD MEMBER, EACH INTERPOSER HAVING A FLAT FACE CONFRONTING THE RECORD MEMBER AND IN ALIGNMENT WITH ONE OF SAID PRINTING ELEMENTS; A CAP OF RESILIENT PLASTIC MATERIAL CARRIED BY SAID FLAT FACES OF SAID INTERPOSERS, SAID CAP BEING OF A UNITARY CONSTRUCTION AND BEING FORMED WITH SLITS DIVIDING MEANS INTO A PLURALITY OF SECTIONS, ONE FOR EACH OF SAID INTERPOSERS; AND MEANS FOR IMPACTING AT LEAST CERTAIN OF SAID INTERPOSERS FOR EFFECTING A PRINTING ACTION FROM AT LEAST SOME OF SAID PRINTING ELEMENTS ONTO SAID RECORD MEMBER. 